Israeli Jewish Holocaust and Genocide Scholar Explains How What's Happening in Gaza Amounts to Genocide

[Ohlalalalala]

Raz Segal is an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies and endowed professor in the study of modern genocide at Stockton University in New Jersey.

[...] an expert declaration by three leading Holocaust and genocide studies scholars: Victoria Sanford, Barry Trachtenberg and John Cox. Sanford has written extensively on genocide and state violence in Latin America, especially in the case of Guatemala. Trachtenberg and Cox have published widely on the Holocaust.

They stress in their report that the “levels of destruction and killings in just over one month, together with the annihilatory language expressed by Israeli state leaders and senior army officers, point not to targeting of individual Hamas militants or Hamas military targets, but to the unleashing of deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza ‘as such,’ in the language of the UN Genocide Convention.”

The assessment of the three senior Holocaust and genocide studies scholars is accurate. Gaza now resembles Ukrainian cities after Russian bombings and invasions, but with levels of destruction and killings that have surpassed in less than a month what we have seen in Ukraine in nearly two years: Official U.N. figures from early September note that Russian attacks killed slightly fewer than 10,000 civilians since February 2022, and injured just above 17,500. Israel has so far killed more than 11,000 Palestinians, wounding nearly 30,000. It is important that Biden described Russia’s attack on Ukraine as “genocide” on April 12, 2022, commenting that “we’ll let the lawyers decide, internationally, whether or not it qualifies, but it sure seems that way to me.” In the same way, Gallant’s “total siege” policy, together with the forced displacement of more than 1.5 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, has created what sure seems like genocide.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-11-19/israel-hostages-gaza-bombing-civilians-genocide-holocaust-studies

Agreed. Despite all the pressure, they stand with the truth.

@Ohlalalalala thank you. You are right. If a professor of Holocaust and genocide studies makes a statement that in his expert opinion he sees it is a genocide, he is definitely worth listening to.

Thank you for sharing this
It'd definitely an eye opener in terms of what constitutes a genocide and how this is proven in what is happening in Gaza
It's also noted that that this was published a month ago so if this scholar thought it as genocide then it only re-inforces it after the escalation we see now
If I get a chance later i will try write up the main few points in brief

Personally I think genocide is a high bar and Israel has surpassed the lower bars of war crime, crimes against humanity even if you don’t agree to call it genocide. That’s an unnecessary peak to set for calling this wrong and calling for the violence to stop

To be clear, I am not saying it is or isn’t genocide although the intent appears clear. It’s more that it’s really a high bar to set for a western supported regime to get to before the western governments step up and say something

Thank you.
Exactly my thoughts. He said it was a textbook genocide over a month ago! I'll link to his article shortly.

I don’t think any war or conflict is right and I want the fighting to stop but what I find infuriating is of all the voices shouting so loudly in support of the Palestinians, I haven’t heard one single one of them voice any disgust towards the atrocities that were committed on October the 7th, or about the young girls being held captive and gang raped on a daily basis, about the babies that were found in ovens and the children that were butchered in their own bedrooms. I hear nothing but silence from them in relation to what happened. Why is this?

A Textbook Case of Genocide
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
By Raz Segal

Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?

Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” as noted in the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” Leaders in the West reinforced this racist rhetoric by describing Hamas’s mass murder of Israeli civilians—a war crime under international law that rightly provoked horror and shock in Israel and around the world—as “an act of sheer evil,” in the words of US President Joe Biden, or as a move that reflected an “ancient evil,” in the terminology of President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives; the assertion of “evil,” in its absolutism, elides distinctions between Hamas militants and Gazan civilians, and occludes the broader context of colonization and occupation.

The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world—almost as many bombs as the US dropped on all of Afghanistan during record-breaking years of its war there. Human Rights Watch has confirmed that the weapons used included phosphorous bombs, which set fire to bodies and buildings, creating flames that aren’t extinguished on contact with water. This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. Israel has also intensified its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—to a “complete siege,” in Gallant’s words. This turn of phrase that explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them, cutting off their water supplies, and bombing their hospitals.

Apologies, removing my post as has been posted already.

Indeed, Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed. Perpetrators of genocide usually do not express their intentions so clearly, though there are exceptions. In the early 20th century, for example, German colonial occupiers perpetrated a genocide in response to an uprising by the Indigenous Herero and Nama populations in southwest Africa. In 1904, General Lothar von Trotha, the German military commander, issued an “extermination order,” justified by the rationale of a “race war.” By 1908, the German authorities had murdered 10,000 Nama, and had achieved their stated goal of “destroying the Herero,” killing 65,000 Herero, 80% of the population. Gallant’s orders on October 9th were no less explicit. Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so.

No need to apologise. Thank you for your contribution ❤️

Look at this monster! How brazenly he's threatening Palestinians and others with total annihilation on TV!

'We are coming to Gaza. We are coming to Lebanon. We will come to Iran. We will come everywhere'

Shay Golden, on Israel's Channel 14, threatens Palestinians, stating that they can't imagine how many will be killed and slaughtered. He states that these killings will not be witnessed in all Arab history.

Golden further elaborates that even if Israel needed to boycott the entire world, they would be 'prepared to fight the United States and the entire world'

Hamas are using their own people as shields. Stopping people from leaving Gaza…building tunnels under caves. Knowing that when Israel shoots back the optics will be bad (Israel attacks hospital). Israel aren’t innocent but Palestine isn’t innocent either…

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/israel-gaza-war-humanitarian-law-concepts/675996/

Professor of law from Harvard has a different perspective, bear in mind he’s speaking purely from a legal angle not a moral one.

🙈So much misinformation in this, please read up a bit on the facts about ‘leaving Gaza’ and ‘shoots back’ and ‘Palestine isn’t innocent’

No possibility of leaving Gaza. There has been no shooting from any hospital. Palestine is different to Gaza and different to Hamas so you need to look that up a bit too.

Nada Abu Tarbush, Palestine UN Representative powerful speech:

This is your average dumdum response about the situation.
Just a load of absolute ignorant nonsense. Building tunnels under caves?
Palestine is not innocent? What the entire occupied territory of Palestine is not innocent?
How many of the 10000 plus dead do you think were Hamas?

what about the hundreds dead in the West Bank? Or do you not know what that is?

Yes. And their families want them to be released and are begging the Israeli government to do what it takes. The Israeli government are using the hostages to further their own genocidal aims while the families march on the streets of Israel. Netanyahu and his Zionists should be paying more attention to their own scriptures and consider reflecting on the judgement of Solomon.

If the Netanyahu government cares one bit about the child hostages they should cease the bombing for at least a few days and let go of their own wish for instant revenge. If the Hamas leaders were ever under that hospital it’s pretty obvious they’re gone now and their top leaders are probably sitting in Qatar drinking tea in comfort watching in glee. Because everyone knows Hamas are terrorists and that’s how terrorists operate.

At this stage I think we should afford this poster some latitude and actually share some information on this. It may be they are just not aware of a lot of the facts behind the situation.

There are a lot of things to read up about and watch on these forums so if they continue to ‘believe’ this irrespective of reading the facts then well…you might be on to something!

The reality is not so hard to know if only one looks beyond the mass media. Hasbara/ propaganda can be fought by knowledge. Unfortunately many people do not go beyond the mass media, do not question the content or are ignorant of how propaganda works.

We have to remember that when ministers start calling for genocide and use that sort of rhetoric it's not something that just happens overnight. This is happening because Netanyahu himself has for the last 16 years pushed those views. He is a terrible man and leader who thrives on the suppression of the Palestinians
There is a lengthy but great article which details the failures of Netanyahu and it really shows how he greatly contributed in creating this mess

But the relative calm of the last decade-and-a-half was built upon a series of illusions: that the Palestinians and their aspirations for freedom could be hidden behind concrete barriers and ignored; that any remaining resistance could be managed through a combination of technology and overwhelming firepower; that the world, and especially Sunni Arab states, had grown so tired of the Palestinian issue that it could be removed from the global agenda, and consequently, that Israeli governments could do as they pleased and suffer few consequences.

For anyone else interested this is the full article

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/21/the-netanyahu-doctrine-how-israels-longest-serving-leader-reshaped-the-country-in-his-image

Do we see intend of genocide? Yes we most certainly do. Nobody can deny that.

TV news amplifies the calls for revenge and the use of disproportionate force, even as the death toll in Gaza rises into the tens of thousands. Each day, another Likud politician or government minister emerges to call unashamedly for war crimes. Agriculture minister Avi Dichter appeared on television last week to urge on the “Gaza Nakba”, as he described Israel’s current ground operation. Deputy speaker of the Knesset, Nissim Vaturi, tweeted that Israel should “Burn Gaza now, nothing less!” Earlier this month, the minister of heritage, Amihai Eliyahu suggested Israel could drop drop a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip. Some Israeli pop stars have begun to sing of conquering and rebuilding Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.

*intent